September 16, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, Sept 15: The district government on Monday directed the health department to launch a special vaccination campaign to immunize children against tuberculosis.

Speaking at a meeting held at the health department, District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani said it was the goal of his administration to get every newborn vaccinated against contagious diseases so that they get the opportunity to lead a healthy life.

He said the district government was already pursuing a crash vaccination programme against Hepatitis-B. Two rounds of three- day campaigns have already been held and a third one is being held from Monday, which would continue till Wednesday.

The campaign would be targeting 54,705 children below the age of one year in the district. Besides hepatitis, children will also be vaccinated against other diseases included in the expanded immunization programme like polio, DPT and measles.

Rawalpindi, which has the best coverage rate in the province among mega-cities, has almost 19.81 per cent of children of less than two years, who were either partially immunized or did not get any immunization at all.

The Nazim said the government in order to overcome this lacuna had embarked on a programme of holding special vaccination drives, specifically to reach those who missed out at the routine campaigns.

Rawalpindi district, he said, had an edge over other districts of the province as special vaccination campaigns were held here. He said the district government had been able to improve the EPI and polio campaign coverage through the introduction of a monitoring system.

Mr Kiani said the coverage in the cantonment areas used to be one of the grey areas in such drives, due to movement restrictions and some other factors. However, for the first time, he said third-party evaluation of the last campaign had confirmed 100 per cent coverage.